At State of Business breakfast, city leaders discuss Fall River's successes and goals

Wednesday

Jan 29, 2014 at 6:37 PMJan 29, 2014 at 6:53 PM

FALL RIVER — The city, itself a crossroads, is also at a crossroads itself, according to Robert Mellion, president of the Fall River Area Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Fall River is transitioning from a mill city into something that will thrive in the 21st century, Mellion said.

It has been a lot of work, and a lot of work remains to be done, he said.

Mellion was one of the speakers at the chamber's fourth annual State of Business meeting held Wednesday morning at McGovern's Family Restaurant, 310 Shove St.

Mayor Will Flanagan and Kenneth Fiola, the executive vice president of the Fall River Office of Economic Development, also spoke.

"The message today is that things are getting better," Mellion said. "They are not getting better because of luck. They are getting better because of sustained effort."

The chamber breakfast was started four years ago as a way for government officials and business operators to look at what is happening in the city and get some idea where it is going, Mellion said.

The city is in transition from a single industry — garment and textiles — to a more diversified mix, especially since the cloth business has fled the city and most of its 100 mills are idle, Mellion said.

"Today, 30 percent of the current mix of jobs in Fall River are in the health industry," Mellion said. "We need to get manufacturing back up, we need to get financial services back up, we need to get distribution back up."

Fall River needs boosters, and people in the city should look at the good things the city offers, Fiola said.

"When you look at Fall River, when you look at economic development, you have to take a holistic view of the landscape," he said. "Companies looking to move in look at schools, tax rates, transportation, quality of life. The want to get a really good pulse of what is happening in the city."

We have good roads and highways, a railroad line, good restaurants, a waterfront, historic attractions and beautiful sunsets, Fiola said.

"One of the biggest challenges we face is our low adult education level," Fiola said. "We need to continue to educate the working population."

He added: "The stepchild in the closet that no one wants to speak about is the drug problem. We have a drug problem in the city."

Flanagan said the city has made strides in the past four years. Fall River has stepped away from the financial chaos that had the state Department of Revenue threatening to put the city into receivership, he said.

"We are not out of the woods yet," he said. "There is still a lot more work to be done in the city of Fall River. We need to be in line with what developers need. We need to fine-tune our zoning ordinances."

The city has already changed its zoning to allow developers to get quicker answers on waterfront development and on zoning for health care facilities, Flanagan said.

The progress of the city can be seen, Flanagan said.

"Fall River is talking with big companies, companies with big names, such as Amazon and the company that made the announcement we saw yesterday, Foxwoods," Flanagan said.

Those jobs, plus expansion in the Industrial Park and the Biopark, will help the city grow, Flanagan said.

"We have to work very hard to get those 21st century jobs here," Flanagan said.